Variegated Customizable Glare Effects

YEBIS has a large number of Glare effects, the most widely known being the HDR effect. Furthermore, each effect can be freely customized.

What is HDR rendering?

In the real world, HDR rendering showcases locations so dazzlingly bright that one fears to look at them in contrast with places of complete jet blackness. It is literally all levels of receptive light displaying at one time.

CG rendering that looks truly realistic requires consideration of how best to record all the shading information that exists.

HDR (High Dynamic Range) rendering came about as a response to this need for realism. HDR rendering carries out lighting calculations in multiple bits without being limited by the display device showing the image. General display devices receive an 8-bit signal each for red, green and blue color channel. With HDR rendering, they receive a dynamic range that exceeds 8 bit RGB. In YEBIS rendering is 16 bits for each RGB color channel.

However, even when the shading information in a scene is accurately recorded with multiple bits, the rendering effects are shown on a display device, and it becomes necessary to convert to a conventional 8-bit RGB format. This is referred to as tone mapping. Tone mapping may appear to be a simple matter of reducing colors, however by using a particular algorithm, it produces results normally seen only with HDR rendering.

YEBIS Variegated tone mapping function

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Tone Mapping

In the real world, humans have an iris that opens and closes to adjust to the amount of light that enters the retina to make the scene as easy to see as possible. In the case of a camera, this role is taken by a diaphragm mechanism that opens and closes. When a scene is too bright, the human iris closes so that it is difficult for light to enter, and when it is dark, the iris opens to allow in large amounts of light to make it brighter. The actions of the iris can make a scene look different even when the physical amount of light is the same.

This concept can also be handled with CG. By holding how the scene was viewed up to that point (in average light for example) and then reflecting that information in the tone mapping, the view through the camera or human eye can be reproduced.

This kind of high-grade tone mapping processing is supported in YEBIS. Variegated tone mapping functions are supported, and the visuals created in the HDR rendering pipeline can be adjusted in real-time for an effective and appropriate appearance.

Glare effects for real and emotionally rich visuals

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Glare Effects

In the process of tone mapping, areas that are too bright will disappear entirely from the gradient. This occurs in the real world as well. For example, even if your irises close and become used to a bright scene, a glimpse of the sun through the tree branches will still be dazzling. Similarly, since your irises open up in the dark of night, even the dim light of a light bulb will appear bright.

This type of glare effect can be added with YEBIS, even after tone mapping, so that one area appears extra bright. It makes a rendering effect appear even closer to what the eye sees in reality. YEBIS can faithfully reproduce the way these kinds of bright spots are perceived by a camera lens or the human eye.

YEBIS has an extremely rich range of Glare effects. In addition to the most common Bloom and Light Ray effects, which create the effect of overflowing light, there are also Anamorphic Lens effects, which will be recognized from its use in movies. Smear, which occurs in CCD and Lens Flare, a phenomenon occurring in bright areas when light is reflected inside the lens are just two examples of this and there are many more.

Each of these Glare effects can be customized to diffract light as if looking through a prism, or to increase the number, length or strength of the rays of light extending from the glare.

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